James III of Majorca

James on his throne, from a contemporary manuscript of his Leges palatinae.

James III (also Jaume or Jaime; 5 April 1315 – 25 October 1349), called the Rash or the Unfortunate, was King of Majorca from 1324 to 1344. He was the last ruler of independent Majorca.

Childhood

James was born at Catania, Sicily. His parents were Ferdinand, the second son of James II of Majorca, and Isabella of Sabran. Margaret of Villehardouin, James's maternal grandmother, fought to reclaim the Principality of Achaea from the Angevins of Naples. Isabella died soon after the childbirth, and James was proclaimed Prince of Achaea under the guardianship of his father. Ferdinand invaded the Morea in an effort to bring the principality under his control, but was killed in 1316. Despite this setback, from 1331 the feudal lords of Achaea began to recognise the rights of James, and in 1333 the recognition was total, though the Angevin heirs of Philip I of Taranto continued to press their claim.

Kingship

Upon the death of his uncle Sancho in 1324, James inherited the crown of Majorca. His uncle Philip ruled the kingdom as regent until 1329. In order to establish friendly relations with the Crown of Aragon, he married Constance, daughter of Alfonso IV of Aragon. Though the kings of Majorca traditionally swore an oath of fealty to the kings of Aragon, James claimed that no king could have lordship over any other king. He patronised the University of Montpellier, which lay within his continental domains, and the legal scholars of that institution defended his rights as king.

On 9 May 1337 James promulgated the Leges palatinae, an elaborate code for his court and the first of its kind.^[1] For it he commissioned a fine illuminated manuscript in an Italian style, which he himself preserved when he lost his throne. He brought it to the Papal curia, then sold it to Philip VI of France. It was to have an important influence on Aragonese and possibly even Burgundian court functions.

In 1342 James refused to render the oath of fealty to his cousin Peter IV of Aragon. He was supported, however, by the doctors of the University of Montpellier and by an Aragonese troubadour, Thomàs Périz de Fozes, who wrote a poem in his defence. In a short war (1343–44) he was driven out of Majorca by Peter, who reannexed the Balearic Islands to the Crown. He died at the Battle of Llucmajor on 25 October 1349 while trying to retake the island.

Issue

His heir was his son,

• James IV, who ruled in Achaea and was a claimant to Majorca. James IV died childless and James III's daughter,
• Isabella, inherited the family's claims. Married to John II Palaiologos, marquess de Montferrat.

By his second wife, Violante of Vilaragut, whom he married in 1347, he had a short-lived daughter.

References

• David Abulafia (1994), A Mediterranean Emporium: The Catalan Kingdom of Majorca (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-89405-0.
• Thomas N. Bisson (2000), The Medieval Crown of Aragon: A Short History (Oxford: Clarendon Press).
• G. Kerscher, The first European ceremonial manuscript—Leges Palatinae—and its relevance for the Mediterranean area, University of Trier.
• Marta Vanlandingham (2002), Transforming the State: King, Court and Political Culture in the Realms of Aragon (1213–1387), (BRILL, ISBN 90-04-12743-7).

Notes

1. Malcolm Vale (2004), The Princely Court: Medieval Courts and Culture in North-West Europe, 1270–1380, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-926993-9), 202–3.